The self-proclaimed Party of the Little People is rolling in cash, and Democrats are positively gloating. “The strength of the small donor has helped level the financial playing field with the Bush campaign,” Mary Beth Cahill, Sen. John Kerry’s campaign manager, crowed last week.

Just who are these “small donors” â€“ these ordinary Americans, these average Joes and Janes, filling the Democratic Party’s coffers?

They are regular folks such as Beth Dozoretz, Washington doyenne and suspected facilitator of the infamous Marc Rich pardon under the Clinton administration, and Bernie Schwartz, former CEO of the disgraced Loral Corp., which paid $20 million in fines for its too-cozy relations with China that apparently endangered national security under the Clinton administration. This year, for their prodigious giving habits, Dozoretz was designated a Democratic National Committee “trustee” and Schwartz was named a DNC “patriot.”

Former Enron Corp. chairman and CEO Kenneth Lay has been indicted on criminal charges related to the energy company’s collapse as a web of accounting schemes unraveled, sources close to the case told The Associated Press on Wednesday.

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Prosecutors have aggressively pursued the one-time friend and contributor to President Bush who led Enron’s rise to No. 7 in the Fortune 500 and resigned within weeks of its stunning failure. Barring last-minute delays, Lay is the 30th and highest-profile individual charged.